I have skipped a bit month 04, i will do later seriously and started month 05 pawn theory.With advance in developpement of month 3, it is one of the best course so far.

I learned a lot of things especially on doubled pawns, i don't know for you but i found the lesson very easy to understand and well explained : when double pawns are good and bad, do you have to keep them together or advance them, can you take and repair the doubling, etc...

What surprised me most, is that i was quite immediately able to apply some tips in my games, with success, leading to wins in some cases and able to draw in other cases without worrying too much.

In particular i myself doubled pawns on the side my opponent had 4 pawns (1 passed on the e file) on the f file and i was so impressed it gave difficulties to my opponent. I doesn't suspected it would work so fine.This let me in fact some time to liquidate the queenside and concentrate later all my pieces to the kingside and be able to draw a game that was badly engaged.

Wow that's cool. I can't wait to get to month 4 then. I'm still in the middle of month 1. I just have the exercises to finish and the test to complete. I'm going to read over everything though. However, it's encouraging to know that you can easily apply the material to your games.

In fact as i wrote in some other topic, it's rather difficult to apply, but with some lessons it works for me at least. "Lead in dvp" and "doubled panws" were appealing to me, but i still have gained nothing from "centre" lessons for example, i do not know how to get something out of it (... yet).

For you, it might be other pdf that will interest you, i guess it depends of you style of play.

I try to apply pawn lessons in my games.Here is a position reached after move 19.

It was an e4 c5 d3 Nc6 Sicilian where no exchanges went on the center yet. I deliberately played this in order to study how to deal with my pawn structure.

So i reached a position where i think i have no weak pawn or square in front of them in my own camp.I focused on black d6 pawn which i successfully made backward and manoeuvered with my Ne3 knight so it can now reach d5 strong square.Also i'm quite centralized, maybe queen on c2 and f-rook on d1 would be better, but here it is.

So more or less the setting is over and it is a critical moment to do something. But frankly i have difficulties to see what ?I have no clear plan about what to do next.

- put Nd5 right now, doesn't seem to progress, after recapture this would lead to doubled pawns on d-file and Nc6->e7 wins the d5 pawn.

- is Bf3 a good idea or not ? it seems to protect the d5 square, but my freedom of movement is also more restricted.

- pushing d3-d4 ? i think it is not good either because after the pawn exchange Nc6 can recapture on d4 which is now a strong square for him, and if i choose alternate line (Nd5) i still have naughty doubled pawns on d-file.

- doing something on the queenside seems difficult since all 3 power pieces of black are on a,b,c files.

So in my game i went with insane 20. f4 ...I was lucky with black choices to liquidate the center, and this lead to this position :

I managed to win thanks to the occupation of d,e open files with my rooks, the relative black king unsafety and the weak b5 pawn.

BUT, i'm not convinced this was a sound sacrifice, let say that black play was not accurate and he could have won easily.

Nevertheless the position after move 19. is evaluated as 0.00 by Rybka whose all possible lines lead to 0.00 evaluation, giving me no real clue about what to do...

Ok, i applied the month 05 theory, but how to free my position and take advantage of the d5,d6 weaknesses ?

HangingKing wrote:In fact as i wrote in some other topic, it's rather difficult to apply, but with some lessons it works for me at least. "Lead in dvp" and "doubled panws" were appealing to me, but i still have gained nothing from "centre" lessons for example, i do not know how to get something out of it (... yet).

For you, it might be other pdf that will interest you, i guess it depends of you style of play.

I've looked at "How to Reassess your Chess" for additional material on double pawns and other pawns from Month 4 and I've found that even though Silman covers the material very nicely and gives good examples, ICS material is more complete and clear! I would still recommend to anybody to take a look at "how to reasses your chess" at chapters on pawns.

Center lessons are honestly not that great at all! Pretty poor compared to other ICS material especially the material on pawns. Kotov's "Art of middlegame" covers different centers nicely. I can't say I've read through all the material ion various centers the book but most. It seems to be a very well written book!

I think the centre material in month 2 is more of an ongoing resource rather than something to try and study at once.

Just take in the basic plans and then compare your own games with the ICS database for each type of centre.

It's just about getting a general feel and being aware of what type of centre you are encountering in your games.

I've found it pretty handy to compare how I've played with their examples, and its also getting me to pay attention to the centre. Prior to that section I have never played a game and considered whether my centre was mobile, closed, dynamic etc. If the material at least gets you thinking about those things then its done its job.

There is more specific instruction on the centre in the later pawn structures months, with lessons on the Carlsbad, KID and Ruy Lopez structures for example.

Just use it as a reference that you can refer back to when you need it.